


A Warrior’s Honor

by stew (julie)



Category: Geronimo: An American Legend (1993)
Genre: Compromise, Freedom, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pride, surrender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-01-01
Updated: 1996-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-22 09:00:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22713523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/stew
Summary: Tomorrow, the great warrior is surrendering his pride and his freedom. Tonight, he is as restless and remorseless as the wind.
Relationships: Charles Gatewood/Geronimo
Kudos: 3





	A Warrior’s Honor

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes:** This fic is, of course, about the fictional characters in the film, and not at all about the actual historical people. Humbly offered as a musing on themes, with all due respect. 
> 
> **First published:** my zine Homosapien #4 on 1 January 1996.

# A Warrior’s Honor 

♦

First Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood had only ever glimpsed Geronimo in the distance before now. Of course he’d heard tales of him, though, and had formed his own opinions based on all that this man had done to keep the Apache tribes free. Gatewood had known Geronimo to be powerful – but that knowledge was nothing to standing a mere two feet from the warrior, to having those dark eyes search him, seeing everything that Gatewood was. Difficult to tell the Indian’s age: his life had given him the uncompromising strength of an old man; but he also had the never-ending energy of a man of Gatewood’s thirty-one years.

The Indian’s search was quickly concluded, the measurement of the white man taken, and Geronimo turned his gaze elsewhere; nevertheless, Gatewood did not feel he had been dismissed.

‘I thought that you and I would sleep in this tent tonight,’ Gatewood said. ‘If your men would share the other tent with Mr. Davis and my scouts.’

That dark knowing gaze returned to Gatewood’s face. ‘Do you believe it will suit this great warrior’s dignity to share a tent with you, and you alone, Gatewood?’

‘Sir, I do not believe your dignity can be trifled with by a soldier.’

An unreadable pause, perhaps intended to shake Gatewood’s composure, before Geronimo said, ‘The arrangement will suit me.’

Gatewood nodded, and sat on one of the chairs under the canvas awning they’d raised at the tent’s entrance. He was aware of Davis, along with the medicine man and the other Indians, all hovering just out of earshot, watching. Geronimo must be used to this fascination, and perhaps accepted it as his due. Apparently oblivious, he was staring off at the mountains south of the Arizona Territory border, arms folded across his chest. He wasn’t still, though, which surprised Gatewood, who knew that the Apaches valued stillness: Geronimo’s feet were restless and his body was alert. It seemed a wholly unlikely idea, now, that this man, this spirit could be contained in a reservation.

The warrior’s face was dramatic and strong, every line and crag accentuated by the late afternoon sun; he had been weathered by the harsh land and the harshness of the white man’s manifest destiny. There was nothing of despair in him, even now when he had chosen to end the Apache wars and surrender.

Gatewood said, ‘Do you play chess, sir?’

‘I know the rules of chess,’ the Indian replied; ‘it is a game of war.’

The white man allowed himself a faint smile. ‘Do you play either war or chess by the rules?’

‘That depends on who created the rules, and why.’

‘That is fair, sir.’ He began setting up the board on the little table between the two chairs. By the time he was ready, the warrior was sitting opposite him. Gatewood had given him the white pieces, so Geronimo began the game by moving a pawn.

The Apache was silent again, the fierce face brooding. His game’s strategy was unrelenting and determined, though he seemed distracted by his thoughts. ‘You are a soldier, Gatewood,’ he eventually said. ‘You know about honor.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the white man replied. He lifted his eyes from the pieces, shifted his concentration from the difficult task of being an adequate opponent for this sharp, clever, ruthless man. There was no question of not playing to win: Geronimo would expect nothing less of him.

‘Do you understand that honor can take you to a place you have no real wish to be?’

Gatewood thought for a moment of his father and brothers riding to war in the grey coats of the South; of how, when it was time for young Charles to be a soldier, he had to wear the blue coat of the victorious North. ‘Yes, sir, I do.’

Geronimo was staring at him, into him again with those dark eyes that saw everything but gave nothing away. ‘I believe you.’ Another two decisive moves. ‘To surrender. That is best for my people. To accept defeat as inevitable.’

‘Not defeat, sir. It is time for us to learn to live in peace together; that is the hard reality.’

‘So I sacrifice this land, this freedom, this strength, so that my people can live. I become a farmer.’

‘You are a great leader, Geronimo, as well as a great warrior.’

‘I do this in bitterness, Gatewood. Honor has never tasted so sour.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the white man murmured. Geronimo moved a knight, and Gatewood frowned: this was a threat he hadn’t foreseen; but he quickly adapted his strategy, and moved in reply.

‘Why did they send you to meet me, to escort me to San Carlos?’ Geronimo asked. ‘Of all their thousands of officers, why you?’

‘Because they knew I would deal with you fairly.’

‘And no other would?’

Gatewood met the dark gaze. ‘Every man in the United States Army shares my respect for the great warrior Geronimo.’

‘Not every man in the Army speaks Apache as you do, Gatewood.’

A moment as Gatewood again assessed the pieces on the chess board. ‘I find much to admire in the Apache ways, sir. You are a brave and wise people.’

‘Then why do you take our land? Why do you shut us away on tiny parcels of barren ground?’

‘You are asking me to justify all white men?’

‘Can you?’

‘I cannot say that we should have come here to this country and taken your land by force. But over two hundred years ago, that is what began. Our fathers and our grandfathers were born too late to stop this; and so were you and I. It is time to accept that harsh reality, and live with it in peace as best we all can.’

‘Such compromise is not in your nature, Gatewood.’

‘But it is, sir. I am a man of the South. This army I now serve defeated my people a few years ago. Men in these blue coats crippled my father and killed my oldest brother.’

The dark eyes focused on him again, from under those dramatic brows. ‘Where is your heart, then?’

‘It is with my family, with my wife and children in Virginia; it is with my people, and with your people, too.’

‘No warrior can be that divided.’

‘It is the reality I am challenged by.’

Again the measurement, the assessment of who Gatewood was, what kind of man, perhaps even the size and shape of his soul. Gatewood bore the scrutiny as best he could. ‘You are strong,’ the Apache at last said. ‘You are strong as I am strong. But it is a different strength, and you use it to different ends.’

Davis approached offering a flask of water and two mugs, obviously curious about both Gatewood and Geronimo, their game and their conversation; when his commanding officer simply thanked him and didn’t invite him to stay, Davis returned to stand with the others, the boy’s shoulders betraying some understandable resentment.

Gatewood sacrificed a bishop in order to take Geronimo’s dangerous knight.

The Indian said, ‘If your honor took you and your family, your people to live on a reservation, you would do that.’ When Gatewood was silent, Geronimo continued, ‘Your loyalty to the white man will not permit your honesty to me?’

‘On the contrary.’ Gatewood sighed, and met the warrior’s gaze. ‘The reservation is not an ideal situation. We all acknowledge that. But it is the best solution for your people at this time. You are wise to accept that. But you already know this, and nothing I say can make any difference.’

Silence for five moves. The breeze picked up, throwing the dry heat at them, quarrelling with the sand. Geronimo’s thick dark hair, bound with a grey scarf, blew free around his shoulders. The great and restless warrior asked, ‘What are you doing here, Gatewood?’ A flat tone, though it was a genuine request.

‘This is the place, Goyakla, where my honor has brought me.’

‘Ah, you call me by my true name.’

‘That is because I offer you friendship, one man to another. When all is done, it is important who each man was, and what deeds he chose.’

The breeze lost any playfulness, and became a gusting wind. Gatewood saw Davis hunkering down in the lee of the other tent; the young man and the Indians still watched, but Gatewood felt isolated from them.

Geronimo was staring at him, curious, sharp. ‘I surrender here, for the good of my people. What can I expect in return?’

Surprising, that he should ask that; it seemed naive. ‘My people are proud, too. If you expect anything more than token gestures, you will be disappointed.’

‘What about you, Gatewood? You are not a man who makes token gestures.’

‘I trust I am not.’

‘You say you will deal with me fairly. What would you surrender to this great warrior’s pride?’

‘I freely give you respect and admiration, and I ask that you respect me in turn, at least as an officer of the United States Army. What more can there be between us?’ When Geronimo remained silent, Gatewood continued, ‘You are right, of course. I have said things to you this afternoon that I would not say to any other man. The conversation has been stimulating. A rare thing.’

‘Yes. How many people can you share your heart with?’

‘None, truly,’ he admitted. ‘Perhaps I fool myself in thinking even this has been the exception.’ Gatewood knew himself to be an honest man, but every hour of every day he found himself lying by omission. Unless challenged, his honor too often kept him silent. As opposed to this fierce warrior: Gatewood couldn’t imagine Geronimo ever hesitating to speak his mind.

‘We understand each other,’ Geronimo declared.

‘Yes,’ Gatewood murmured, though he doubted it. The Indian was gazing at him again, with all the unreadable, compelling fierceness – except there was a different aspect to the face now. Something in the dark eyes hinted that the warrior was done measuring Gatewood, and was contemplating him instead, regarding him. Perhaps the man’s restlessness had found something to focus on in Gatewood; it seemed the game of chess would be left forgotten.

‘You understand Indian ways, Apache ways.’

‘I trust that I do, to whatever extent a white man can.’

‘You speak our language, you know our customs. You know the Apache are warriors, that the Apache tribes argue and fight each other, that this is important to us, this is our way.’

‘Yes.’

‘We live in harmony with the land, and with our own natures.’

‘It is something I greatly admire.’

‘However, my own nature, in some ways, would not always be acceptable to my people.’ A pause, and then this question again: ‘What about you, Gatewood? What will you surrender to me?’

The significance escaped him, although there must be significance: everything Geronimo did and said was deliberate and full of purpose. Gatewood said, ‘You cannot ask anything of me that affects my task here. My duty is to protect you, and to escort you to San Carlos. That is what I must do.’

‘I ask something of you as a man, a man here alone. You are a soldier, I am a warrior: what passes between us now cannot affect the deeds we choose in the wider world.’

‘Can’t it?’ Gatewood asked quietly, feeling completely at sea.

There was a pause, and then in his blunt way Geronimo asked, ‘Are you considered beautiful amongst your people?’

‘I don’t know,’ was his immediate reaction. Flummoxed, he continued, ‘It’s not something I have an opinion on. I believe my wife thinks of me as handsome.’ But Skye’s views were biased by love; complete sweet surrendering love.

‘What do you call this – humility? It does not become a warrior.’

‘Perhaps you are too fierce and true for humility. You have no need of it.’

‘You are beautiful,’ Geronimo declared. ‘Not handsome. I understand the distinction. Beautiful.’ And there was at last the briefest hint in his expression of what the Indian wanted from Gatewood: the contemplation in the dark eyes was joined and explained by a moment’s sensual quirk to the aggressive mouth. The wind asked again, _What will you surrender to me?_ The warrior waited.

Gatewood considered this in startled silence. The notion wasn’t abhorrent to him, though he’d never really thought of such a thing for himself. There had been two soldiers in a troop he’d commanded who had loved one another, and he had accepted that situation: they had been fine men, and unstintingly loyal to him. There had been a few more casual liaisons he’d been aware of. And he’d even found himself pleased to discover that many of the Indian tribes accepted the practice. But something more than acceptance was requested of him. Finally he said, ‘You ask this of me, one man to another. This is between us and no one else?’

‘Yes.’

‘This is what is owed to the great warrior’s pride?’

‘Yes.’

Difficult to really think about this, impossible to consider all the ramifications of it. Surely the reasons to refuse would out-weigh the need to do whatever would make surrender easier for this powerful man; surely if Gatewood thought hard enough he would find that to be so.

Dazed, he toppled his king over with one finger, and let it roll off the chess board. He stood, and walked into the tent.

He remembered to take a breath, he glanced around him at the shuddering canvas. Dazed. No point in considering this; events had brought him to this place. No point in questioning or thinking. Gatewood began stripping his uniform off, folding and hanging each item of clothing neatly and quickly, as if preparing for sleep. No matter that it was late afternoon, no matter that in the field he rarely took off more than his coat and belt and boots.

Naked. No point in doubting or fearing. And yet, of course, he did. Wondering in a rush of foolishness whether he’d misunderstood everything, completely misread what this awesome man wanted of him.

Gatewood turned as Geronimo entered the tent, turned to face him. No room left for doubt as the dark gaze explored this latest war trophy. Only room for the vague hope that he would acquit himself with some dignity, that the warrior would be in some way appeased.

Geronimo crouched to fasten the canvas at the entrance, and then approached Gatewood. If there were words, the white man couldn’t hear them; it was made clear he was to sit and then lie back on his cot, though his feet remained planted firmly on the sand. And Geronimo – of all people, the great Apache warrior – Geronimo crouched between Gatewood’s knees and, with no further ceremony, took Gatewood’s phallus into his mouth.

If there had been a transition during which Gatewood had become engorged, he couldn’t remember it. Perhaps his body had responded to the hints and demands before his mind had realized. The sensations provided to this most hungry and sensitive of organs were incredible.

Gatewood stared at the canvas above, and thought of his wife. He loved her, he adored her with all the truth in his heart. He was thoroughly smitten with all the shy sweet simple things they did together. And, existing within him alongside all that, he loved this sensation now.

The fact was, he had never had this. Never had anything like this demanding mouth encompassing the very root of him. Barely knew what to do with the sensations that forced their way through him. Though his body knew what to do, of course, and was soon teetering on the brink. He muttered something, whether a warning or a blessing or a prayer – and then a gust hit him in the small of the back and he spun out into completion. For long moments he was nothing less than the air with waves of sunshine crashing through him. But soon he was nothing more than a naked soldier lying on a cot in the Arizona heat.

Geronimo had stood, was taking off his clothes, letting them fall on the other cot; staring at Gatewood’s sated body all the while. Fierce.

No matter. This was what the great warrior wanted, and Gatewood had not expected to be gifted with pleasure beforehand. That generosity made this surrender far easier.

The large weathered hands arranged Gatewood as Geronimo saw fit: lifting his legs onto the bed, rolling him up onto his side. And the Indian lay down behind him, and did what it was he wanted to do. There was force to this possession, so that Gatewood was pressed into the ungiving cot, his face hard against the folded blanket he’d used for a pillow, the man heavy along his back. There may have been pain, but dazed he wasn’t really aware of it. This was simply something that had to be done.

He was still Lieutenant Charles Gatewood, though reduced and withdrawn; his honor had brought him to this place. The wild wind buffeting the tent, the canvas creaking and whipping around them; the elemental wind moved over him, moved within him.

_Charles_ , his wife said in that clear voice of hers; giving no reproach, only loving sustenance. He called, ‘Skye,’ in reply, thinking of her own sincere surrender to him, and his heart’s surrender to her; thinking of how this couldn’t change all he felt for her even though it would become part of him, though this would be part of the husband who returned to her; this thing that was so removed from all he’d known –

The wind cried out, fell spent across him. A moment of quiet merging and then Gatewood was lying alone. Stiffly, slowly, he rolled over onto his back, saw Geronimo dressing again. An unfathomable stare, and the warrior walked outside the tent.

Too stunned, too reduced to move, Gatewood lay there on the cot, naked. The sun was setting on this day when Geronimo surrendered; the warrior stood, his shadow thrown across the canvas, watching the end of his freedom.

As the last beams lit the tent, Lieutenant Davis’s shadow joined Geronimo’s. Two plates replaced the chess set. ‘Is Lieutenant Gatewood inside?’ He couldn’t even stir himself to meet this intrusion.

But Geronimo was deflecting the boy. ‘Gatewood was tired. We will be travelling all day tomorrow. You and the others should rest.’ When Davis was gone, Geronimo brought the food inside, but Gatewood wasn’t hungry. The warrior ate it all, then took the plates out to clean them in the sand.

Silence, except for the unabating wind, and then Geronimo again, quickly lashing the tent up and undressing as the twilight grew.

Rougher, this time, and no pleasure before it. Even the Indian seemed too fierce, too determined to take pleasure – although his completion was apparently a devastation.

They lay quiet together, Geronimo not moving away immediately as he had before. Gatewood asked, his voice hoarse, ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Because this is my last night as a warrior. Because I want this freedom, this victory. Because, when I hand my guns over to your Brigadier, I want to look him in the eye and silently tell him, _I surrender, yet I conquered and owned the best of you_.’

He wanted to plead, _Make sure you tell him silently_ , but instead Gatewood asked, ‘The best?’

‘Your heart is big and your soul is true, Gatewood. Your face and your body are that truth made flesh. You are the best of your people. And for tonight you are mine, and I belong to no man.’

Gatewood thought of saying, _Call me Charles_ , but it was too late for such niceties, it would be too ridiculous. And then of course he remembered Skye again, as if he ever forgot her for more than a moment. Laughing lightly and calling his name, sweet and fond, which meant that she loved him more than ever after the first solemn difficult weeks of their marriage. They’d created a child that night, Skye had born him a beautiful daughter, and then a hearty boy. And Gatewood had been called away to the Apache wars. He missed her more than he had sanity or words for.

The briefest of caresses from Geronimo’s hands recalled him to the present – Gatewood remembered those hands strong and competent reining in his horse – and Geronimo withdrew, though this time he only wrapped himself in his colorful blanket and sat on the other cot. Again, Gatewood lay where he was, as if thrown there and abandoned. No conversation between them, as the wind howled. Occasionally the awning would crack as if alive and trying for freedom.

From the dimness of the other side of the tent, Geronimo said, ‘My Power is silent.’ He sounded more dispirited than Gatewood could ever have imagined. ‘The medicine men tell me to surrender, and I know I should, but my Power is silent.’

Nothing Gatewood could offer to that, no reassurance that wouldn’t be meaningless. He lay there and watched the Indian restless but deep in his thoughts; surfacing now, and seeking distraction or maybe some reparation.

Yes, there was apparently to be a third time. As Geronimo walked towards him, Gatewood wondered how on earth he would sit his horse through all the next day’s riding. He let a wry smile reach his lips, murmured, ‘You want me to sacrifice the very last of my dignity…’

And Geronimo said in that rumble of a voice, ‘This soldier’s dignity cannot be trifled with, not even by me.’

As the warrior stood there naked above him, Gatewood let himself see the splendor for the first time. This man’s body seemed elemental, the red earth come to life and maddened by the hot wind; as beautiful and irresistible as the land itself.

Gatewood shifted back on the cot and raised his arms in welcome, though the Indian’s morose need for comfort was no longer in evidence; Geronimo lay down, moving into the embrace and adding a fierceness to it. There were no kisses exchanged, though Geronimo’s fingers explored the contours of the face he’d called beautiful, traced the white man’s lips. Then Geronimo’s mouth roamed Gatewood’s throat and his chest, gnawing restless and then easing with his tongue. Gatewood’s hands explored the great warrior’s back. The simple unrelenting provocation of skin on skin was incredible. Gatewood at some stage murmured encouragement.

‘Ah, yes,’ Geronimo said. ‘Give me your passion as well.’

Gatewood’s embraces were naive, clumsy as he’d never been with Skye. There was too little experience and no real imaginings to draw on here – and his emotions were generous, but were only the echo of love. It wasn’t that Gatewood had remained pure until he married, but there had only been one woman other than Skye; a long romantic dalliance with a widow a few years older who, to his hurt and confusion, had then left him behind for someone more eligible, someone more… amusing. She had been adventurous, but the fact remained he had never had anything like this.

Geronimo encompassed him, knowing and demanding and fierce. Soon the Indian was moving them, shifting behind Gatewood, that mouth now roaming across the white man’s shoulders and back. And this time, once he was in possession, Geronimo’s hand reached to find Gatewood’s pleasure as well.

Hard and rough, and beautiful for all that, like the mountains rising colorful and stark out of the desert surrounding them. ‘Goyakla,’ Gatewood murmured. He felt feverish, both hot and cold, and quite out of his rational mind, driven mad by the relentless pressure of the wind moving over him. He reached back to spread palm and fingers against the hot flesh and bone of a hip, maybe pushing the man away, maybe caressing him.

And the warrior rumbled, ‘Charles.’

Gatewood cried out as completion found him, as Geronimo ruthlessly rode Gatewood’s shuddering, the Indian seeking his own pleasure now. Another cry – protest from the white man and satisfaction from Geronimo – and Gatewood found he didn’t have the wherewithal to even fear whether Davis could hear them over the crazy wind.

When Geronimo was done, quiet descended, shrouding them both. A short eternity of calm, though nature still railed around them.

Eventually the warrior asked, though he needn’t have, ‘Are you hurt?’

And the solider offered him the truth in reply: ‘I feel sore and abused. But not hurt.’

‘Good.’ An increased hold on him, perhaps expressing gratitude or farewell, and then Geronimo withdrew.

Moving at last, Gatewood rose stiffly to his feet. They each performed their nightly ablutions, Gatewood dealing with the results of this encounter, feeling no shame; Geronimo watching him, curious, but not offering any help or concern. Gatewood didn’t mind that, for there was no point in trying to make this anything other than what it was. No point in pretending this had to do with anything more than doubt and injured dignity and pride; with the nature of surrender and bargaining and victory.

Gatewood was content. He hauled on his undershirt and trousers, nodded a good night to the Indian warrior, and lay on the cot again, wrapped up tight and warm and alone in his blanket. Blessed sleep awaited him, deep and peaceful and satisfying. But before he gave himself over to it, Gatewood thought once more of how much he missed his wife; he said her name, and it sounded even to his own ears like a prayer.

♦


End file.
